Dec 16, 2010

Now, moving to the very top of my bat poop crazy white people list are ... the editors of Life magazine's "The Most Notorious Crimes in American History" issue, on sale for $11.99 plus tax on a newsstand near you.

To illustrate just how egregiously mistaken those editors are, let's play a little "Sesame Street" game called "Which of These Things Does Not Belong?" All these things involve American crimes.

1. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

2. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

3. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

4. The assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

5. Michael Vick and his dogs.

Yes, I'm pretty sure you all nailed that one. Clearly, what Vick did pales in comparison to those other crimes, but those Life editors couldn't, wouldn't allow themselves to see how silly they are.

True, I can't be certain that all the editors involved are white. But had there been at least one black editor, I imagine the brother or sister would have told the others, "You know, you have a MAJOR problem here."

Nearly 60 crimes are listed in the issue, ranging from the assassinations mentioned above to the murder of O.J. Simpson's former wife and her unfortunate friend; the Oklahoma City bombing, the St. Valentine's Day massacre, John Lennon's murder and Lizzie Borden taking that ax to her parents.

Editors even included the 1863 New York City draft riots, in which scores of Irish immigrants conducted a veritable pogrom on the city's black population (Those blacks inclined to celebrate St. Patrick's Day would do well to remember that next March 17.). But even that inclusion doesn't make up for what editors excluded from the list.

How can the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sept. 15, 1963 NOT make this list? And by what logic do you, if you include what Vick did, leave off a crime in which four black girls were murdered?

So, let's recap so we can better surmise what controlled dangerous substance Life editors ingested before they came up with their list. Vick killing some dogs qualifies as one of the most notorious crimes in American history, but a bombing that snuffed out the lives of three 14-year-old black girls and one 11-year-old girl doesn't?

I imagine the surviving family members of Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley must be absolutely livid. They should be. So should every other black American. But I think some of us are too quick to forgive when it comes to the deaths of Addie Mae, Denise, Carole and Cynthia.

Specifically, I'm talking about those folks at the NAACP. Way back during that Shirley Sherrod foolishness, the NAACP issued a statement that included this line: "The NAACP has long championed and embraced transformation by people who have moved beyond racial bias. Most notably, we have done so for late Alabama Gov. George Wallace."

Oh really? Sorry, I'm not as forgiving of Wallace. I don't care how much he claimed to have changed later in his life. During his early career, Wallace was a stone segregationist. During his later years, Wallace claimed he had nothing but love for black folks.

I'm sure his "transformation" was sincere, but that didn't lessen his culpability in the deaths of Addie Mae, Denise, Carole and Cynthia. That bombing happened on his watch as Alabama governor. The culprits were never caught, tried or prosecuted on his watch. And, most galling of all, five years after the bombing/murders occurred, Wallace had the nerve to run as a third-party candidate for president of the United States.